Cold Comfort
by MannyZanders
Summary: Maxie reflects on her life and the man she shouldn't love. SpinMax


She knows it's wrong, she does. But she can't help herself, at least that's what she tells people when they look at her like she's crazy, when the few brave dare question – _why?_

But it's not the truth and she knows it. She can help it, she just doesn't really _wan_t to, probably because she doesn't think it's really all that wrong, it isn't – it can't be. Not something that goes so far beyond merely_ feeling_ good, no this – this thing she has with him, it's more than that –so much more.

She doesn't "feel more alive" when she's with him, she's far too cynical too believe in - let alone spout out tired cliché's like that – at least that's what she tells everyone, even him. But the truth is she both feels everything and nothing.

In her quiet, angry, desperate moments, those times it all becomes too much and she thinks about leaving – both him and this godforsaken town of Port Charles – she can admit, even if it's just to herself that he is her everything and without him in her life nothing would matter anymore. So she stays. Stays and keeps on loving him, living both for and without him.

_For her protection_, he'd told her all those months ago. For her protection, they would sneak around and pretend. Pretend that they weren't in love, pretend that waking up yet another morning without him didn't rip her heart out in two. But it did, it does and Maxie hopes for the day that she's going to find her way back to herself, back to Maxie Jones, the real one that is.

Not this –_ imposter_ – that she doesn't even recognize in the mirror anymore. No - that tired, sad, defeated girl can't really be her she thinks and when she reaches up to trace the outline of the haunted eyes staring back at her, that's always when she'll see it, the harsh glitter of the icy diamond on her left hand and she comes crashing back to reality. Her reality – as Maxie Zacchara, _Mrs. Johnny Zacchara_.

She hates her it, she hates everything about it – from the giant tacky ring on her finger that signifies nothing but her own imprisonment in this – farce, this sham of a marriage to the dark and gloomy mansion that now serves as her home. She doesn't just hate her husband, she hates everything he represents, hates that every time she looks at him she can only think of someone else, hates all the if only's that she sees in his eyes that she knows is a mere reflection of her own, hates when he comes home at night reeking of that _tramps_ cheap designer knockoff perfume. And she hates her most of all.

Lulu.

That bitch.

Lulu, who has everything Maxie so desperately wants. Well not everything, actually she only has one thing Maxie wants, her husband.

Lulu's husband, not Maxie's.

Lulu could have Johnny. Maxie could care less if Lulu and Johnny started humping like bunnies on crack right in front of her. What she does care about is Lulu's last name, the one that tells the world that she has the one thing, the only thing that truly matters to Maxie anymore.

Spinelli.

As much as Maxie wants to hate him, curse him, give him up – she doesn't, she can't. Sometimes Maxie thinks that she really just hates herself the most, because she can't give him up, can't stop coming back for more, and can't stop loving him. No matter how hard she tries, and she has tried. She doesn't try anymore though because she knows it's useless, her borrowed wounded heart will always belong to him.

It's cold comfort knowing that he's suffering as much as she is. She knows that if there was a way, any way, for the two of them to be together - he would have already found it. But it doesn't stop her arms from aching to hold him again, it doesn't stop her heart from nearly crushing under the weight of the misery that being without him brings.

She wishes she was brave enough just to say _Fuck it_ and tell Johnny the truth and leave him to follow her heart where it will forever remain, with Spinelli. But she's not, she's not that brave. Because even if Johnny really wouldn't give a damn - and he wouldn't, he was just as miserable and his heart too lay elsewhere - this world she'd allowed herself to get sucked into demanded a twisted code of honor. He could never allow her to dishonor the Zacchara name by leaving him. Especially for a highly placed and highly valued member of the Corinthos Organization, that Spinelli was merely an honorary member would hold little meaning to him. And if Maxie just thought he would kill her, she almost thought it would be worth it - having to watch the man she loved pretend to be the devoted husband to that faithless bitch of a wife was killing her anyway - but she knew Johnny would kill Spinelli before allowing him to have Maxie.

So she would remain stuck, frozen in this awful, painful, dark place where her only comfort, her only true happiness came from stolen moments with the man married to her husband's mistress.

From time to time she still thinks of leaving this awful stupid fucked-up town - just disappearing, saying goodbye to everything and everyone in it but she knows she won't.

She belongs in Port Charles because that's where Spinelli is and her heart, her future, and her soul - they all belong to him. And so she stays.


End file.
